OutTwit Brings Outlook and Twitter Together

The folks at TechHit were tired of not being able to keep up with their friends' Twitter posts at the office--without looking like they weren't working. So they came up with OutTwit. It's a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook that...

The folks at TechHit were tired of not being able to keep up with their friends' Twitter posts at the office--without looking like they weren't working. So they came up with OutTwit. It's a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook that allows you to receive Twitter status updates and posts from your friends, and make your own Twitter posts from Outlook.

With so many free apps to help you stay on top of your Twitter posts and the posts and updates that your friends make, you might wonder why someone would want to use plain old boring Outlook to manage their Twitter messages and status.

Part of the answer is obvious: People at work who don't want to look like they're goofing off but still want to keep in touch with their friends can use an app like this. The other part of the answer isn't so obvious. A number of people have Microsoft Outlook at the center of their digital lives, and want to get as much use out of it as possible. Outlook has remarkably robust task management and calendaring tools, and if your business or office uses Exchange for e-mail and calendaring, you probably have Outlook open all of the time.

With OutTwit, you can update your own Twitter status and post new messages directly from Outlook, and you can receive your friends' updates in an Inbox folder as actual Outlook messages. This allows you to filter by friends and message types, and you can configure how often Outlook will look to Twitter for new updates instead of receiving them as they come in. OutTwit works on Windows 2000, XP, or Vista, and only with Outlook 2003 and 2007.

I'm not much of a Twitter user, but I do have to use Outlook all day, every day. OutTwit could be a great way to keep in touch with friends and stay organized at the same time, without having to open a new application to stay on top of Twitter posts and status updates.